Alexandria

Alexandria is more than a point on the map in The Decameron: it is a threshold where sea journeys begin or end, identities are hidden and recovered, and the fortunes of strangers cross. The city launches Alatiel’s perilous passage, becomes the setting for Ginevra’s public vindication, and holds Torello far from home until Saladin recognizes him. Across these different stories, Alexandria connects movement across the Mediterranean with reversals of status and fortune.

A Port of Departure and Displacement

Alatiel’s story begins when her father, Berminedab, gives her in marriage to the King of Algarve. Sent from Alexandria aboard a well-equipped ship, she travels with an honourable company of men and women and a rich store of goods. After the ship passes Sardinia, contrary winds drive it into a storm. On the third night, as the vessel begins to founder near Majorca, the sailors abandon it in a crowded boat that also sinks. Alatiel and her women, exhausted and helpless on deck, are carried ashore when the damaged ship strikes the island’s beach. Alexandria thus marks the start of a voyage that overturns the security and rank with which she departed.

The city remains part of Alatiel’s remembered life even after she has been carried through other households and territories. Years later, at Baffa, she recognizes Antigonus of Famagosta, whom she had seen in Alexandria serving her father. He does not at first recognize her, since she has been presumed drowned; she identifies him and entrusts him with the account of her misfortunes. His recognition of her as Berminedab’s daughter offers a path toward recovering her former standing. Alexandria, in this episode, is not merely the place she left but the point of reference that makes her concealed identity legible again.

Saladin’s Court and the Test of the Rings

Alexandria also provides the setting for Saladin’s encounter with Melchizedek, a wealthy Jewish lender living in the city. Saladin has spent his treasure through wars and munificent acts and urgently needs money. He believes Melchizedek can supply it, but expects that the miserly lender will refuse voluntarily; unwilling to use force openly, Saladin devises a question about which of the Jewish, Saracen, or Christian laws is true. Melchizedek understands that a careless answer could give Saladin grounds for a quarrel and asks to tell a story in reply. Alexandria is therefore the scene of a contest conducted through speech: the ruler’s need and power meet the lender’s learning and alertness.

The location’s courtly role also matters to Ginevra’s story. After escaping the servant sent to kill her, Ginevra assumes the identity of Sicurano da Finale and enters the service of a Catalan gentleman. When he brings peregrine falcons to the Soldan in Alexandria, Sicurano accompanies him. The Soldan notices Sicurano’s conduct and asks that the servant be given to him. In a short time, Ginevra wins the Soldan’s favour through her behaviour and is entrusted with authority beyond the household: she is sent to Acre as captain of the guard at a seasonal fair attended by Christian and Saracen merchants. Alexandria is the courtly point from which this new, disguised life acquires public responsibility.

Ginevra’s Exposure and Vindication

At Acre, Ginevra sees a purse and girdle among the goods of Venetian merchants and recognizes them as her own. Their owner, Ambrogiuolo of Piacenza, boasts that Ginevra gave him the objects after he slept with her, and recounts how he won five thousand florins from Bernabo Lomellini by claiming he could seduce her. He adds that Bernabo later ordered his wife killed. Ginevra understands that Ambrogiuolo’s lie caused her husband’s fury and her own attempted murder. Rather than reveal herself at once, she draws Ambrogiuolo into an acquaintance and brings him back to Alexandria, where she gives him money and a warehouse, keeping him close while she arranges to confront him.

She also has Bernabo brought to Alexandria from Genoa, where he is living in poor circumstances. Before the Soldan, Ambrogiuolo is pressed to explain how he won the wager and admits that he invented the adultery. Bernabo then confirms that, believing the false accusation, he ordered a servant to kill his wife and was told that wolves had eaten her. Ginevra’s disclosure changes the meaning of both men’s actions: the supposed unfaithful wife is the surviving victim, the boastful lover is a fraud, and the husband’s credulity has made him an accomplice to injustice.

The revelation takes place in the Soldan’s presence. Ginevra kneels, sheds her masculine voice and manner, and identifies herself as the woman who has spent six years wandering in men’s clothing. She tears open the front of her clothes to show that she is a woman, then challenges Ambrogiuolo to say when he ever lay with her. He recognizes her but cannot answer. The Soldan, who had believed her to be a man, praises her constancy and virtue. At Ginevra’s request, he pardons Bernabo; Bernabo falls at her feet and begs forgiveness, which she grants. Ambrogiuolo is bound to a stake, smeared with honey, and left in the sun until he falls of his own accord. The Soldan gives Ginevra Ambrogiuolo’s property, worth more than ten thousand doubloons, and further gifts of jewels, precious vessels, and money exceeding that amount. A banquet honours the reunited couple before they sail back to Genoa wealthy and welcomed.

Torello’s Captivity and Recognition

Alexandria is also the destination to which Torello is taken after being captured during a Christian campaign. In the city, he is initially unknown and fears to disclose who he is. Since he is skilled in hawking, he trains hawks and comes to the Soldan’s notice, who releases him from prison and employs him as falconer. Saladin calls him only the Christian, and neither man recognizes the other at first. Torello’s thoughts remain fixed on Pavia, and attempts to escape fail; he eventually sends word to his wife through Genoese ambassadors, asking her to wait for him.

Recognition comes through a small gesture rather than a formal introduction. While discussing hawks, Torello smiles and moves his mouth in a way Saladin remembers from the time he had been a guest in Torello’s house at Pavia. Saladin tests his suspicion by showing him garments once given to him by Torello’s wife. Torello recognizes their resemblance to clothes he had provided for three merchants, but does not understand their significance until Saladin identifies himself as one of those guests and names Torello. The former captive is then treated as a friend and honoured at court, a reversal that makes Alexandria the place where hospitality once offered in Pavia is returned on a grand scale.

When false news leads Torello to believe that his wife must have remarried, grief makes him take to his bed and resolve to die. Saladin learns the cause and promises to get him to Pavia by the appointed time. A magician is ordered to transport him asleep on a bed. Before the journey, Saladin equips him with costly gifts, including a crown for his wife, a carbuncle ring, a richly furnished sword, and gold and jewels. Torello awakens in the church of San Pietro in Ciel d’Oro at Pavia, where his uncle the abbot and the monks first flee at the sight of the splendid bed and sleeping man. Alexandria is left behind, but the objects sent with Torello carry its courtly generosity into his return home.

The City’s Narrative Significance

The stories give Alexandria several connected functions without reducing it to a single kind of setting. It is a harbor from which a princess departs into disaster, a court where a ruler’s power meets a learned man’s verbal ingenuity, and a center from which an assumed identity can rise to authority. For Ginevra, it is the place where the truth is staged before witnesses and punishment follows exposure. For Torello, it is at once a place of captivity, service, friendship, and preparation for return. These episodes make the city a hinge between distant worlds: characters arrive displaced or concealed, and the encounters there redirect their fortunes.